Thursday, October 29, 2009

Estonian Milk Soup with Pasta Shapes

This week is school holidays in Estonia, and my 10-year-old nephew stayed with us for a few days. We went for walks, swimming at the local swimming pool, did some homework together, he spent hours entertaining our little daughter. Of course, we also cooked and ate food together (nachos, enchiladas, quesadillas and other food with high kid appeal). Our last meal together was lunch on Wednesday and I offered to cook him something special. His request: makaroni-piimasupp or pasta and milk soup. I was baffled - I hadn't had that humble soup for almost two decades and I didn't think today's kids eat it. I was proven wrong :)

Furthermore, I had no intentions to blog about this particular milk soup and didn't focus too much on getting a good picture. But then somebody saw the picture in Flickr and asked for the recipe, so here you go after all...

Although the soup has some sugar in it, it's more of a "savoury" soup, served as a meal on its own, preferably with some ham sandwiches on the side.

Bring water to the vigorous boil, add salt and pasta shapes. Reduce heat to simmering, then boil for 5-7 minutes, until pasta is al dente.Pour in the milk, give it all a stir and boil for another few minutes, until pasta is fully cooked.Season with a pinch of sugar and some more salt, if you wish. Stir in the butter and serve.

20 comments:

Oh, Pille, I'm flattered :)Thank you sooo very much for posting the recipe along with the little delicious story (I've enjoyed both equally). Many years ago I remember eating a "alleged Norwegian milk and pasta soup", and I hadn't heard or seen (let alone eaten) anything like that ever since.

Now I got two nice childhood memories of you to cook this Winter (if we ever reach to have such a thing here in Barcelona!): the fermented oats and this soup. I'll post about it properly :) Aitäh!!

I had this soup when I was growing up in Russia! Great to see it here--it sounds so odd that most people wouldn't believe that it's an actual meal. I remember it as basically hot milk with cooked pasta and a pat of butter.

Reminds me of the food in hospital when I broke my ankle 2 years ago. Last night your soup inspired me to make a "white" soup to which I could have added milk, but I didn't. My soup had onions, potato, cauliflower, button mushrooms, cooked rice, and was seasoned with salt & white pepper. We ate it with warm home-baked bread rolls.

We have the same soup in Slovakia - my mum used to cook it when we were kids. I haven't had it for good 20 years. Only one difference - in our soup pasta dough is grated so it forms funny shapes, it is mot regular pasta. Oh, memories ;-)

Oh, this reminds me of summer camps or package holidays in Poland when I was a child. Breakfast would always include some kind of zupa mleczna (milk soup): milk soup with fine pasta, porridge or a runny version of cream of wheat. I never liked it very much then, but now I sometimes use leftover pasta in a similar way, i.e. pour over some hot milk, add some honey or similar and eat for breakfast.

, whenI was a kid, I was tortured this type of soup in school and in summer time. Our Polish version is very similar. Why the soup was a torture? Because the milk was burnt very often, noodles were overcooked....I can see now, that this milk soup is part of our Middle-East European heritage. My French husband, for example, did hear about the milk soup :)Kind regards.

This recipe caught my eye because it's very similar to a German soup that is made with milk and egg noodles. I liked this soup, especially with the addition of the small amount of sugar. It was a nice touch! I used orzo and made as directed except for subbing homo milk with 1%. Made for PRMR.

I've never had anything quite like this. It seemed to have more flavors of a hot breakfast cereal than a soup.....guess I'm giving away that I like a little sugar in my oatmeal :). Very easy to make, but a bit bland. Probably good for someone that is feeling under the weather. Thanks for sharing!